Managing and participating in these conversations is not only a great way to build a relationship with the public, it's also a great way to help your brand or product innovate.

Discover UserVoice, "the fastest way to turn feedback into innovation" as they put it themselves, but moreover -- a damn brilliant 2.0 application.

What UserVoice does is very simple. It opens up a channel for people to give feedback on your company's product or service, offering ideas and improvements. Just like you had your own little private (or public) customer management tool.

"On other projects we were left frustrated and overwhelmed when trying to grasp what our users really wanted. Unorganized inboxes and clogged ticket systems ruled the day. Forums were awash with duplication, user support was impossible to determine, and valuable ideas were lost in the shuffle."

And this great insight led the way to a very flexible online application. The system is pretty much a cross between Digg and Twitter, but applied to feedback usage -- which is one heck of an idea in itself. People can rate the submissions, a function which helps you recognize which parts of your product or service are worth improving first, or down right changing completely.

If you want to see an example of UserVoice in action, take a peek at TweetDeck's UserVoice (TweetDeck is a standalone Twitter aggregator application in its beta phase). I'm using TweetDeck and had a few ideas for improvements, and was trying to email TweetDeck directly to let them know. Upon landing on their page and looking for contact info, I decided instead to click their "TweetDeck Feedback" button, and I was directly sent to their UserVoice account -- that was 10 minutes ago, and also the reason I'm now blogging this post. You'll get the idea pretty quickly, and like me, you'll probably by amazed by the idea.

This is one of the best 2.0 ventures I've seen in awhile, and a potential massive success we'll be hearing about shortly.